How to be Unabashedly Girly

Springtime in Portland is ridiculously girly. The trees are covered with pink and purple flowers that match the favorite clothes of my 6 year old niece. The sky remains baby's breath blue, the clouds fluffy and cute. The warming weather sends women diving into the clothes that could not, and really should not, be worn by men: sandals and skirts and little dresses with yet more pink and flowers and ruffles and cute. The urge to put flowers in your hair is well-nigh irresistible. 

I used to judge myself for such things. I have brothers. I'm a tough girl, I thought. I can shoot and fish and hike and swear. I would try really hard not to be too girly. Girls squeal, and break out into song when they're drunk, and pretend to be "wild" when they are just being typical. Girls want to be "princesses" and "goddesses" instead of just people. Girls are high maintenance and over-thinking and often dismissed as illogical. I did not want to be dismissed, ever. 

Then I met the women of Oregon, and I learned how to get over it. To the Oregon woman, there is no divide between femininity and capability. Lacy underskirts never stopped an Oregon woman from planting a blueberry farm or getting a wagon out of a ditch, and they certainly aren't going to stop the modern day Oregon girl from hiking to the nearest lake for a swim. A true Oregon girl can tromp through the forest for hours, pointing out every native edible plant, set up camp by twilight, and make you nettle soup over a fire, all while wearing a crown of flowers that never seem to wilt. They are wood nymphs and sprites, bounding from branch to stream in gossamer dresses, all the while knowing much more than you about how to tough it out in the wild. My modern Oregon-girl friends have no shame in their feminine predilections, because they aren't worried about appearing incapable. Their houses have lace, delicate art, and baby chicks. They embrace make-up, dresses, and sweet smelling long baths, while planning their next backpacking trip or mountain climbing expedition. 

I've been contemplating this lack of dichotomy, for want of a better term, as I look for another cooking job. Restaurant kitchens are very male places. Full of fire, sharp object, and bravado, kitchens can be really annoyingly male. Given the springtime splendor of the Northwest, that is not where I want to be. I want to be female - kind, and playful, and covered in pink - without being questioned about my dedication or drive as a cook. I want to be an Oregon woman, fording my way into the field without taking off my skirt.

With that in mind, I think today I'll give you a very girly recipes that requires some self confidence and knowing your own tastes: 

Strawberry Rhubarb Tartlettes with Lemon Cream

Pastry:

This pastry dough is much less difficult than you have been led to believe, particularly if you have a food processor. There is only one important direction: Don't over mix. You want it a bit chunky, with little bits of butter still clearly visible in the finished product, because each little bit of butter is going to make a flake, and each flake is going to add up to it being flaky, delicious pastry.

So, put 2 & 1/4 cups flour and 2 sticks butter, cold, and cut up into small little bits into a food processor. Pulse a few times - really, just like three times - and add a little sugar (a tablespoon or so), a pinch of salt, and maybe a little flavor if you like - maybe a bit of lemon zest? A few thyme leaves? Some rosemary flowers? Herbs and flowers are girly - go for it. Pulse again, until everything is broken up into small chunks, about 4 or 5 times more. 

Now break out your vodka. Why vodka? It's only 60% water, so you can use more of it without developing the tough, cardboard-like texture that can be the bane of tart makers world-wide. Drizzle a little vodka over everything - maybe 1/2 a cup? - and pulse it together once or twice more. It should mostly form a ball. Dump the entire shebang, including any unincorporated bits, onto a sheet of plastic and press it all together into a disk. Wrap well and refrigerate for at least a half an hour. It needs to be cold, and hard. 

(this would be a good time to make the filling)

Once the pastry has chilled, roll it out on a floured surface and gently press rounds of it into false-bottom tartlette pans. "Dock" the bottoms by poking holes i them with a fork, and freeze for about 20 minutes. preheat the oven to 375 degrees

(this would be a good time to make the cream)

Once the tartlette shells are good and cold, pop them in the oven and bake for about 15 minutes, or until just golden. Keep an eye on them, if they bubble, deflate them with a knife-poke. When they are crisp and pale gold, remove from the oven and cool. Fill before serving.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Compote:

In my humble opinion, rhubarb is the Oregon girl of vegetables. First of all, it's pink, and proud of it. It will happily color other foods, or a jar of vodka, with it's cheery hue. But also, Rhubarb is a vegetable: it's tart, strong, and hardy. It can do savory, but it likes to be sweet. It takes only the slightest gentle warming to soften it up, but it can grow almost anywhere.

I prefer to keep this compote rhubarb-heavy. The strawberries aren't quite in season, here in Oregon, so they seem a little exotic, and rhubarb is really delicious all on it's own. 

1 pint strawberries, cleaned and quartered

4-5 large stalks of Rhubarb, chopped into small chunks.

1 tablespoon butter

Sugar, to taste. 

1 star anise

A splash of Cointreau

A lemon

Melt the butter over medium-low heat and toss in the rhubarb and anise. Sprinkle with a generous handful of sugar and stir. When the rhubarb starts to "melt" taste a cooked bit and add a little more sugar if it is very, very tart (remember, the strawberries and Cointreau are sweet, too). Stir in the splash of Cointreau. When the rhubarb is about three quarters cooked - mostly mush with a few chunks - take it off the heat and add the strawberries. Stir, let the residual heat of the rhubarb warm the berries. Taste. Do the strawberries need some more heat? Does it need more sugar? If it's too sweet, maybe a squeeze of lemon? Cool, and fish out the anise if you're so inclined.

Lemon creme:

Whip heavy cream in a cold metal bowl with a whisk. When it starts to thicken, add lemon zest, powdered sugar, and tiny bit of Pernod. Whip until think and fluffy, but not stiff. 

To assemble, simply put a generous amount of compote into a tartlette shell, and top with creme. Decorate with a few lavender flowers or a nasturtium, if you are so inclined.

Eat shoots and leaves.

For those of us in the Northern half of the nation early spring is a time of temptation and frustration. Our thumbs are screaming for green, the skies seem to tease us with sunshine every three days or, here in Portland, three hours, and the temperature hints that we might soon be able to shed our woolen outer layers for perhaps a whole day.

But just as I can't yet break out the open toed shoes without risking podietal hypothermia, I can't yet shed all of the food staples of winter. My tastebuds, like my other senses, long for warmth and spring. Foods that taste fresh and green and new. A complete revival from sleepy root vegetables and slow simmered meats. But there are difficulties in making a whole meal out of new shoots and just sprouted leaves - they are, mostly, very small and very expensive. A head of watercress is just delicious, but at 1.99 a bunch, your going to need a lot of money to have a filling salad. Spring onions and asparagus are lovely, tender and sublime, but also small and more expensive by weight than light sweet crude.

The trick, then, with these lovely little gems is to create a meal entirely infused with delicate spring flavors while filling you up with less expensive staples. The staples depend on the flavor, of course, but the challenge is to leave the delicate green flavors relatively clear - supported, but not overwhelmed. In other words, the veggies here are Hillary Clinton and the grains meats are Bill. When Bill lets Hillary shine, as he seems to be doing now, she is in control, happy being the main flavor. When Bill butts in - remember that comment about Jesse Jackson winning some primaries? - he overwhelms and Hillary can seem weak and insipid. 

As usual, let's start with the simplest recipe. You know how to make this, actually, before I even start. Wilt some vegetables over medium high heat in a pan, toss with pasta, herbs, and a little cheese. But because we are dealing with spring, let's finesse a few points:

Pasta with Spring onions, Fennel, Mint, Grapefruit and Fresh Mozzarella

1 lb short pasta, such as fusilli

2 large head fennel

2 bunches spring onions (btw, these aren't scallions, these are baby onions - ask your grocer)

1 bunch mint

1 large grapefruit

1/2 to 2/3 lb fresh mozz (2 ovaline, or a dozen brocconcini)

Salt, Pepper, Butter, Extra Virgin olive.

Cook the pasta in well salted water until al dente. Package instructions are good, but start checkin on the little suckers two minutes before the package says. reserve at least 1/2 a cup of pasta water when you drain.

While the water comes to a boil: Quarter, core and cut the fennel into thin-ish strips. Clean the onions, cut cross wise into two inch segments, and quarter lengthwise for 2 inch strips. Roughly chop the mint. Use a zester-grater to get as much zest off the grapefruit as possible, set aside. Peel the grapefruit with a sharp knife and cut into chunks, reserving as much of the juice as possible. Cut the mozz. into about the same size.

When the pasta goes into the water, melt a pat of butter and a little olive oil in a hot pan until the butter ceases to bubble. Toss in fennel and onion and stir fry, basically, with a liberal dose of salt and pepper, until cooked and perhaps a little browned. Turn off heat, toss in the grapefruit fruit and zest, and warm it up with the residual heat. Don't overmix, the grapefruit is delicate in this state.

When the pasta is just done, drain, and add the pasta to the vegetable goodness - but not all at once! Only add as much pasta as looks right for the amount of vegetable. (Don't let Bill get in the way). Toss in another generous pat or two of butter, heaping handfuls of mint, and the fresh mozz and toss together until the moss is just starting to melt. Add a little pasta water if things look too dry, but the grapefruit juices should have you covered.

Serve and be happy. I recommend not breaking out the parmesan with this one - it's a little strong.

Watercress Soup:

The key here is to use only things that reinforce the green watercress flavor. So use leeks, not yellow onions, and clean white potatoes, not yellow.

1 large russet potato

1 bunch leeks (2 big or 3 smaller)

2 stalks celery

2 bunches watercress

a little bit of cream, sour cream, or half and half

Butter, salt and pepper

Peel and dice the potato, keeping the diced potato reserved in cold water while you do anything else. Cut the celery and leek into little half moons and wash thoroughly. Cut the roots from the watercress.

Over medium/medium low heat, melt a pat of butter and saute the first three ingredients with a dash of salt and a little pepper until softened. Cover with water and simmer until fully cooked. Transfer to a food processor or blender (or use an immersion blender if you are lucky enough to have one) and blend until smooth - adding a little more water if it is too thick. Stuff both cleaned heads of watercress into the hot soup whole with a spoonful or three of cream and blend again. Taste for salt. Maybe a few drops of lemon juice? It should be incredibly watercress-y and delicious.

The Cure for the Common Cold

I have a cold. 

In fact I have so much of a cold that if I were talking to you, this information would sound more like, "I hab a code." I am snotty. I am weak. I refuse to get out of my moth-eaten old sweater and socks. I can survive on nothing but tea and soup. The medicine in my system seems to have only worked insofar as I now find "Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders: Making the Team 3" to be riveting entertainment. 

Colds are common. Everyone gets them, and usually twice a year. They are an infection, caused by an ever-changing group of viruses, that take root in some back part of the nose or throat and migrate through all the happy warm parts of our respiratory tract. The progression of symptoms is pretty much the same for everyone, and sounds exactly like an advert for Nyquil: sore throat, stuffy head, runny nose, and sometimes chest congestion. 

But everyone reacts to the common cold as if their cold is unique. My roommate is a cold denier: he pretends he is not getting sick and continues with his routine, but with a few more vitamins, until he's so sick he can't do anything but lay in bed. One of my ex-boyfriends was the classic whiner: at the first sign of the faintest illness he canceled his plans, took to his bed, and really, really wanted me to take care of him. A good friend of mine is a cold-depressive: she tries to get rest, but remains an insomniac, all the while lamenting that 1) she is missing all the fun stuff and 2) no one is going out to buy her cold medicine and soup. My brother has stealth colds: he just gets strangely quiet, and less active, and you start to think he's just lazy, until he gets better and you realize you were kinda being a prick, but just in your head. I am a cold pragmatist: At the first twinge I check my supplies of Emergen-C, Wellness Formula, tea and Nyquil. I drive to Washington state, where you don't need a prescription and buy the real kind of Sudafed (Sudafed Classic!) and I make a big pot of chicken soup. I then rest and wait to see how bad it is going to be, knowing that, like my Boy Scout brothers, I am prepared.

And, I have to say, my methods work pretty well. There is no cure for the common cold, in that there is not anti-viral medication that works against it, and there are too many cold viruses to make immunization worthwhile. On the other hand, there are a number of remedies that shorten the duration and severity of a cold, particularly if taken at the very beginning of the illness. These remedies work in a few ways, but mostly they are like bed-rest in that they are simply good for your immune system. The stronger your immune system, the faster it will beat your cold. 

Herbal tea, a very simple thing, is ideal for colds. A lot of the common ingredients - orange peel, berries, hibiscus - are high in vitamin c, so is the lemon you might squeeze in. Honey, a common accessory, is a natural antibacterial and antiseptic, protecting against secondary throat infections. The steam also helps loosen up all that nose-clogging goo.

My favorite cold remedy, however, is chicken soup. Chicken soup is the definitive cold-comfort food, and has been prescribed as a cure since the 10th century at least. A study done at the University of Nebraska Medical center indicated that chicken soup encouraged beneficial white blood cell response. Other studies have shown that, for whatever reason, chicken stock (as opposed to chicken-flavored stock) reduces the duration and severity of a cold. What's more, as luck would have it, good chicken soup is delicious, incredibly cheap to make, and easily frozen for re-use when you are, like me, too snotty and sad to even make fresh soup. Furthermore, chicken soup can easily contain all sorts of other good-for-you treats: bright, vitamin c containing vegetables, immune boosting garlic, snot-busting spices, and lotsa lemon.

Here are my two variations on chicken soup. The first is more like a chicken minestrone, and I make it all winter long. The second is a more recent experiment in herbacious, chicken-y goodness. As always, your input is appreciated!

A note about chicken soups generally: Never, ever use chicken breast meat. It does not appreciate long cooking and lacks the connective tissue to become truly fall-apart tender. Your best bet for soup is chicken thighs, as they aren't too gristly, like chicken legs, but will remain actually get to that happy, tender stew place.

Chicken "Minestrone", Jessica Style.

1/2 lb. chicken thighs, boned, skins off.

1 lemon

1 onion, diced

4 cloves garlic, chopped.

2 large carrots, chopped

3-4 ribs celery, chopped

1 red pepper, stemmed, seeded, chopped

A few herbs: a bay leaf, some parsley stems and a few sprigs of thyme, tied together, plus one sprig thyme for the chicken.

A sprinkle of crushed red pepper

Chicken stock

2 cups cooked cannelini beans (1 can*)

3/4 cup soup pasta, such as 'riso' (or 2/3 c barley)

Extra Virgin Olive Oil, salt, pepper

Marinate the chicken with the lemon juice, lemon zest, salt, pepper, 1 sprig chopped thyme, 1 clove chopped garlic, and a little olive oil.

Warm a large stock pot with a little olive oil in it over medium-high heat. When oil is shimmering, add onion and carrot. Salt lightly. Saute, stirring occasionally, until the carrots have brightened and started to turn the onion a little orange. Add the celery, and saute for a few minutes more. Add the red pepper. Sprinkle with crushed red pepper, stir in the remaining garlic and saute until the edges of the red pepper just start to wilt. Don't be afraid to add a little more olive oil if things are looking dry. 

When vegetables are softened, add chicken stock, herbs, and a few grinds of fresh pepper. Bring to a boil.

Meanwhile, heat a saute pan over high heat. When the pan is hot, sear the chicken on both sides until browned all over. It does not need to be cooked through.

When soup boils, lower heat to simmer and add the beans. There is a bit of division between my friends about bean-water - the stuff in the can with the beans - some say it adds body and thickness, others say it just adds farts. Make your own decision. However, do not add the bean water if it contains anything other than water and salt. No onion powder in your soup, please!

Chop the seared chicken into bite sized bits and toss into the soup. 

When the soup has returned to a simmer, finally, add your soup pasta or barley. Taste for salt. Simmer along for another 30-40 minutes, until the pasta/barley is tender and the chicken has cooked through. Serve with a little chopped italian parsley and a dollop of sour cream, if you are so inclined. 

Garlic, Lemon and [green/herb] Chicken Soup.

This soup is a "Choose Your Own Adventure" sort of soup. Start with a simple base, and at the last minute, stir in whatever wilt-able green your happen to have around. Escarole is very classy and pretty, spinach is bright and good for you, kale will give you more crunch, and, in a pinch, big handfuls of italian parsley will do the job. 

1/2 lb. chicken thighs, boneless, skin off.

3 lemons

1 large shallot, diced fine

4-5 cloves garlic, chopped

1/4 cup white wine/vermouth

chicken stock

crushed red pepper

4 cups wilt-able greens of your choice (about 1 head of escarole, or 1 bunch of spinach)

Extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper

Up to 4 hours before, or as little as a half an hour: trim the chicken thighs and chop into bight sized pieces. Marinate in the juice and zest of one lemon, 1 clove chopped garlic, salt, pepper and a bit of olive oil.

Heat a heavy bottom stock pot with a tablespoon of olive oil over medium-high heat until shimmering. Sear marinated chicken until golden-brown all over. Remove chicken, with tongs, reserving fat in the pot. Add garlic and shallot and crushed red pepper and cook until just poached - about 1 minute. Add white wine/vermouth and scrape up any browned bits of chicken on the bottom of the pot. When the liquid is almost all evaporated, add chicken stock and bring to a boil.

While chicken stock heats, zest remaining lemons into the soup. Once the soup comes to a boil, reduce to a simmer and add chicken pieces. Cook until chicken is cooked through and tender. Add greens all at once, and stir until just wilted but still bright. Remove from heat, squeeze in lemon juice to taste, and salt as necessary. Serve with a swirl of good olive oil, a few grinds of fresh pepper, and crusty bread.

Cheesy!

One should never underestimate the power of cheese. Think about it. Milk is a drink that most of us give up by the time we are 12. But with the assistance of a process that is little more than high-falutin' rot, milk becomes about a million different culinary substances, the most basic of which cause grown humans to slump into their seats and call for momma.  Entire villages in France are defined by their local cheese. It's as if there was a town in Wisconsin called "lactobacilli." I firmly believe that one over-hyped 90's era diner in Los Angeles stays in business because it had the mensa-like idea to make little balls of mac-n-cheese and deep fry them.

Furthermore, cheese is a substance for all seasons. In spring, there are tangy little balls of fresh goats' cheese that you can roll around in herbs and pepper. In summer, take an oozy-good triple cream with you on your picnics and mush it into baguette with slices of perfect tomato. In fall a simple plate of honeycrisp apples and white cheddar is lunch, to me, about half the days of the week. A small round of indecently decadent truffle cheese makes a lovely Christmas gift.

But while cheese, on it's own, inspires devotion - you may have heard that the French describe the smell of some cheeses as "the feet of the gods?" - it is the application of heat to cheese that turns fully functioning humans into grabby little creatures unable to speak but through desirous moans and grunts. Melted cheese can take the possibility of something being, well, inedible off the table. Some say pizza is like sex for young men: no matter how bad it is, it's still pizza and therefore good. Mothers are regularly encouraged to hide otherwise unacceptable vegetables such as broccoli under layers of melted orange cheese in order to placate picky children. "Cheese pulls," - those colorfully lit, somewhat pornographic shots of separating slices of melty pizza/burrito/sandwich - are actually required by contract to take up a large part of any fast food advertisement because franchisees know that nothing sells crap food more than cheese.

I have no idea why melted cheese taps into our primordial desires more than, say, cream of wheat, but I do not deny it, and I certainly don't look down on it. There is, however, a lot of opportunity to sexy up those old childhood stand-bys. With that in mind, I will now share with you my favorite recipe for macaroni and cheese:

Bay Leaf and White Cheddar Mac n' Cheese

A few preliminary notes: this recipe calls for making a "roux". Do not be intimidated. A roux is only bubbly butter and flour with some milk in it. Also, this recipe can be changed to accommodate any cheese/herb combination you desire. As long as the cheese melts and the herb is fresh, you are good to go. Lastly, feel free to freeze this recipe in it's pre-bake form for as much as a month, well wrapped. Some cold night you will be very happy to know that you have delicious mac and cheese waiting for you to pop in the oven.

1 lb. small pasta (anything with good nooks)

3/4 - 1 1/2 lb.s sharp white cheddar cheese, grated*

3 tb. butter

2 tb. flour

2 fresh bay leaves or 1 dried

a few sprigs thyme

3-4 cups whole milk

Sea salt

Pepper

1/8 tsp. nutmeg

A few slices whole wheat bread, crusts removed.

Take out the bread and set it on the counter to dry. Cook the pasta in salted water for 1-2 minutes less than called for on the package.

Put the milk, herbs, nutmeg and a little pepper into a saucepan and heat until steaming, and a few bubbles have gathered at the edges. Remove from the heat and let steep. In a separate saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat, and sprinkle over with the flour (don't worry about lumps, you'll stir them out). Cook the roux, stirring often, until just starting to turn gold (5 minutes or so). While stirring, add the milk slowly. Add only as much milk as gives you the saucy consistency you are looking for. Reserve the rest in case the sauce thickens up on you after you add the cheese. Speaking of which, add most of the cheese and stir into the sauce. Taste the sauce. It probably needs a little salt and maybe a little more pepper. Does it have enough cheese? You can add more. 

Preheat the oven to 350. Mix the pasta with the cheese sauce, adding the pasta to the sauce and stopping when the pasta/sauce ratio pleases you. Pour into a baking dish. Pulse the bread in a food processor to make crumbs (or just go at it with a knife). Sprinkle the bread crumbs and any and all remaining cheese over the dish. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes, remove foil and bake for 10 minutes more, or until the bread crumbs are golden and toasted. Serve with a simple butter lettuce salad and be happy. You can also divide the pasta into 1 or 2 person serving sizes, and bake only what you desire, saving the rest for a rainy day.

*You could use a lot more cheese in this, or a little less. As always, taste as you go, and buy more cheese than you need. No one ever minded having a little cheddar around the house.

Sage Advice

There is something about lawyers. 

The lawyer 'class' is blessed with more than its fair share of overtly striving, overly opinionated douchebags. We are the source material for a million hokey jokes for a reason: law school attracts people who are simply, monotonously ambitious, but who lack anything in  particular they wish to do. Some of the larger law firms would be perfect places to hide if one were, say, a highly functioning psychopath.

However, in at least one aspect - our easily given opinions - we can be forgiven. It's not our fault, we were trained that way. Lawyers are counselors. We are trained to listen to your woes and dreams and translate them into easily digestible legal clauses and arguments. Deeply felt grievances become cool and convincing "complaints." Lifelong ambitions become profit participation clauses. The trick is, if one is to take on other people's deepest grievances and life long dreams, one had better have a pretty hefty ego on one's shoulders. Thus the overly opinionated advice - we must believe our own opinionated bull in order to do our job.

The best advice, of course, comes from a counselor who really listens: An ear that can distinguish the most important elements from the human muddle, an advisor who can call on the wisdom of the ages. This is "sage advice."

But why sage? How has this word come to represent an ageless wisdom, as well as a pungent herb? Why does sage, dried and smoking into the ether, speak to the spirits more than thyme or, perhaps, parsley? Like many herbs, sage has been recommended for any and all ailments at one time or another. Even in modern times, there is some evidence to suggest that sage has antifungal, antibiotic, hypoglycemic, estrogenic and "tonic" qualities - although I'm somewhat at a loss as to why anything in modern times might be called a tonic, other than what goes in my gin. Perhaps most interestingly, sage contains Thujone, a chemical which allows neurons to fire more easily - and is the oft-maligned substance which supposedly gives Absinthe it's psycho-active kick. One study suggests sage may inhibit the progress of early stage Alzheimer's. 

But the sage of wisdom and the sage of your garden are not the same: A sage, the person, is traditionally a "wise man." The sage of your garden is salvia, as in a salve, which according to English folklore, grows best in a home where the wife is dominant. Thus, technically, I cannot be sage about sage, but I can grow it easily (and I do).

Luckily I no longer can, and don't particularly want to give you sage advice about grievances and dreams. I will, however, share with you some very lovely, tasty advice as to what to do with sage.

First, with sage more than with other herbs, a little goes a long way. Sage is an evergreen plant, and a tough bugger to boot. In order to withstand the cold of winter, and the arid conditions it calls home, sage has a high proportion of oils and a relatively low water content. Furthermore, these oils have a pungent, medicinal quality that can be unpleasant in large quantities, but in small doses have an ethereal essence that calls to mind everything one has ever heard about the healing powers of the desert. So start small - look for mystery, and add more as you need it. Other fats will subdue sage's oils by spread them around and mellow them out, which is the role of butter (yay!) in these wonderful, simple cookies

Sage Scented Shortbread

I love sage shortbread because it falls in the mystery land between savory and sweet. These cookies are wonderful dipped in a little chocolate and served with coffee, however they are also lovely served with a strong blue cheese and a glass of deep red wine. 

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons thinly sliced fresh sage leaves (or more, if you want)
• 1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch-thick pieces, room temperature

Mix together the first four ingredients. Add the butter and thoroughly combine by mashing and stirring with a fork. Roll the dough into a long log, cut in half and store in the fridge (wrapped in plastic) until thoroughly chilled and hard, at least half an hour. 

Preheat the oven to 350. Once chilled, slice the logs into rounds, about 1/3" thick (you don't have to be too precise about it). Sprinkle with sugar, the regular kind, if you so choose and lay out on two baking sheets lined with parchment. Bake for 20 minutes, rotating the pans half way through. 

Sage Salsa Verde

Not to be confused with the green salsa at your local taco stand, Salsa Verde is a classic southern French herb pesto that is as versatile as you want it to be. Simply change the primary herb and you can change the entire sauce. Sage salsa verde is my go-to sauce for putting the finishing touch on any slow-cooked meat dish - a burst of bright fresh flavor enhances a slow cooked meal in just the right way. This sauce is also wonderful on sweet roasted root vegetables.

1 bunch parsley

1 bunch sage

a few sprigs: rosemary, thyme, marjoram.

1 lemon, juice and zest.

2 cloves garlic

1 cup extra virgin olive oil, at least.

Sea salt

Pepper

Remove all of the herbs' leaves from the stems, rinse and pat dry. Throw all of the garlic, parsley, rosemary, thyme, and marjoram and half of the sage into a food processor. Pulse to chop. Add all of the lemon zest, and half the juice, a few turns of pepper, a few large pinches of salt. Pulse to combine. In a slow stream, with the motor running, add the olive oil. Only add enough oil to turn the herb mixture into a lightly runny paste. Taste. If the salsa is not obviously delicious, add more salt/sage/lemon until it is. 

Milk Braised Pork Shoulder with Sage

Don't even get me started. This recipe is based on just one of the amazing meals I've had at Chez Pannise in Berkeley. I didn't get the recipe from them, I just had this meal, and have tried, about a million times, to make something even close. Done right, you should end up with falling-apart tender, sage infused pork that has lovely, crispy good bits on top. DO NOT FORGET to make sage salsa verde when you make this pork - they are two recipes in love with each other.

2 lbs. boneless pork shoulder

Sea salt

Pepper

2 tb. butter

2 bunches sage

1 bay leaf

1 large shallot, peeled and quartered

6-8 cloves garlic, peeled

2-3 whole cloves

2 cups dry white wine

1/2 to 3/4 gallon whole milk

As far ahead as you can manage to - 24 hours at most, 4 hours at minimum - pre-season the pork: rinse, pat dry, and season generously with salt, fresh ground pepper, a few finely minced sage leaves and 2 chopped loves of garlic. When ready to cook, remove pork from any accumulated juices, and sear over medium-high heat until browned all over. Do not cut the meat into small cubes - you want one large hunk that will fall apart in it's own way. 

Preheat the oven to 275. When the meat is browned, deglaze the pan by tossing in the white wine and scraping up all of the tasty brown bits while the wine bubbles away. When the wine has reduced by at least half, turn off the heat. In a large dutch oven or stock pot, melt the butter and saute the remaining garlic, the shallot, 1 bunch sage leaves, bay leave and cloves until just fragrant. Add the reduced wine and add enough milk to just cover the pork, season with salt, and bring to a simmer. Do not worry if the milk curdles, curdling is inevitable in this recipe.

Lower the pork into the warm milk mixture, there should be enough liquid to almost cover the meat, cover tightly with a lid or foil and transfer to the oven. Cook for at least 2 hours. At 1 1/2 hours, remove the lid or foil, and add 1/2 of the remaining sage leaves to the cooking liquid and taste for salt. When the meat is fork-tender, switch the oven to a low broil and brown the meat for at least 10 minutes. 

When the meat is crisped above the liquid line, remove the pot from the oven (careful, it's HOT). Using tongs or two wooden spoons, gently lift the meat from the cooking liquid and set on a warm plattter. Strain the cooking liquid, which by now is a strange, curdled, caramel brew, through a fine mesh strainer. Simmer a cup or so of the clearest strained liquid with the remaining sage leaves, thicken with a bit of butter, and pour over the meat. Drizzle with sage salsa verde and serve.